What causes emotional suffering?

Awesome thread! I have read the posts and there is some really good food for thought here. Has anyone brought up the circumstances to someones suffering could have an effect on how long someone suffers?

What I mean is that Skeptic was somewhat vague as to the circumstances of each friends divorce. I am not fishing for details I just think if we fleshed out the circumstances for each divorce it might give some insight as to why one friend struggled less or more.

For example one friend may have been with their mate for many years and had children together and never had any inclination that divorce was coming. Not understanding the circumstance or having no real reason for being abandoned might make a person struggle and suffer for a longer duration.

On the other hand maybe the other friend was not satisfied with their marriage maybe the marriage suffered from infidelity. Maybe their suffering was brief because they had already been dealing with these issues. So they mourn the loss and then quickly realizes they no longer have to deal with things as they were. They get a fresh start.

Just throwing it out there.

reply to post by ottobot


Limbo is the moment, perhaps, when things are either resolved or the situation remains forever stretched out in a neverending and unraveling spiral. The longer a person stays in limbo the more they see that their perspectives can float any which way depending on mood. One minute a person might privately cherish an old memory with their old love. Then in the next audibly utter a curse under the breath in hatred at what they feel was an unforgivable betrayal. To simultaneously love and hate might seem an impossibility. Nevertheless, I think many people who go through serious emotional trauma find themselves concurrently occupying both spaces.

I think it's largely because of this confusion why the emotionally traumatized hide themselves. I don't think they've given up living. I don't think they're lying down and dying. Rather I think people in this position see themselves as naked. In contrast when a person is resolute, confident and happy, they can be this way because their choices have the appearance at least of being successful. The choice of who they wanted to be worked out for them. So they're proud of what they've become.

When our identities come undone. We're ashamed. We're faceless. We're incapable of sharing in one-on-one moments with others because without an identity, how do you know to laugh or to cry? This isn't dull or muted. It's a mind lost in uncertainty. This behavior is particularly noticeable in the homeless who have been left in isolation for long periods. The personality enters a place where it has no terra-firma to take hold.

So I agree with your last paragraph. It takes a herculean effort for people to pull themselves out of this place. Companionship is important. Help in the form of comfort and compassion from others, as well as ourselves, is necessary. However I think another factor is simply realizing that being in limbo solves nothing. It's all possibilities. When we accept everything, we simultaneously choose nothing in particular. It's an impossible way to live. Complex problems don't have simple answers. People tend to want to peg an answer to the problem to one simple thing. "He's at fault." "I did something stupid." "It was all just circumstance." Usually the problems are compound. There are no single variables that can be tweaked to improve the situation.

Often the lesson to be learned is simply that circumstance and conspiring aspects of our personalities can result in emotional hysteresis. In which case all we can do is pick up our bags and say, "So long. I'm choosing something different." And moving on, while keeping what we loved and found to be beautiful stowed away in our luggage to be cherished into the future.

Originally posted by Benevolent Heretic
reply to post by clay2 baraka

 

Was this on Thursday morning, by any chance? Because my husband AND I had a very similar experience of that day. It lasted until sometime Saturday. We called it "a visit from angels" (half-jokingly).

I am normally a very happy person, but on Thursday when I woke up, I literally felt like a different person was inside my head! I still feel like my life changed a little on that day... My husband, who is normally kind of miserable, was also full of positivity and living in the present...

I often say that our minds are so powerful that simply changing our minds can change our lives.

I am pretty sure it was Thursday, but for me it lasted through the day, the next morning was quite different, I guess you could say "normal."

USually people cause other people's emotional suffering. I think someone else was trying to say it but they were unclear. If you depend on what others think then they will bring you a lot of emotional suffering, if you only depend on yourself for your happiness then nothing will cause emotional suffering. Love is an illusion we all fall prey to at some point but it doesn't have to cause emotional suffering, if you're happy with yourself. Love is the illusion created by a deviant God who needed to make sure that the race or species would proliferate and because our brains are more complex (whereas animals can just have lust, desire) we feel the need to form an emotional bond because we are wired that way on purpose, but if you realize this then you won't need to depend on love or other humans to make you happy. It is what you see when you look in the mirror that causes strife.

reply to post by UltimateSkeptic1
. Reading The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle really gave me alot of insight into the nature of suffering as well as some skills to help transcend it. Cheers!

reply to post by ldyserenity


i agree with ur perspective on the matter, but let me b more extremist for my mind which cant function but radically or nothing

the thing is not more then nothing only smthg is more then nothing for sure
a thing, is ultimate absolute superiority to nothing while also free which confirm that absolute superiority

so imagine when a thing is that quality to nothing what about two and more things, it is really another dimension where any is the value of a true thing there by itself freedom which is clear and completely different to another thing also there clear value freedom

this is the least that can say about true existence or true existing objects, i didnt invent any and it is really the least since i cant b but objective so from what u r, and clearly u r from much below nothing since u cant even admit the linear way of thinking being existence of smthgs reason

so i agree but,

what ur thinking is kindly not right so from lacking to know right, is what u naturally put the responsability of all on oneself, which cant b, it has nothing to do with objective even as a principle fact, where u confirm it unconsciously since u mean the end as being the mirror clarity not reality clarity of someself

the least dimension of true existence involve always much more then a freed intelligence, intelligence is to the relative character of superior constancy justification so relative to objective value of smthg which is relative to objective absolute value of a thing
which is also the reason relatively to a pick intelligent that is confirmed by knowing how all is the same positive rule too making it free out of intelligence as a plus to mean smthg else

back to the point, existence is for those freed superior intelligence right realities while of so for too truth freedom rights reality wills

so there is like us conscious that represent freedom rights to b real as freedom right separate to intelligence facts

and there is like very away freedom that true existence represent its full rights first to possess existence fact to its watever wills to do with

so there is infinite amount of free ones, smthg is free relatively representing one possible only freedom even out of relative thing, the freedom is always one this is the point why one seem to b a rule, irrelatively if that freedom is right so out of absolute thing constancy or of objective value or of absolute freedom superiority so watever, as long as there is objective relativity there is then always a pick free superior while that pick is always only one even if u change u become another one, u cannot add freedom cmon like god invent to please ur will to be justified as wrong

reply to post by absolutely


that is why it suddenly change when human conscious dimension exist out of animals possessions all

unfortunately some must pay the price of that change but noone will notice it excpet them, while it is irrelative to the objective fact of change must

it is not anymore about reactions or senses, it will be always about else recognition, as when u r a pick out then u must admit anything of its pick existing value fact, so u cant change else or anything while accepting all and any as it is meaning of course just u to b right accepted too as a value existing out of all for anything u want or mean or do or need

animals dimensions were justified objectively on the base of relative superiority which is of course the opposite but meaning it by being its opposite that is why it always were in one form condition ultimately as nothing but gods life having that extra existence freedom to gain by ruling of using and abusing, where the true rule was and still is of course, profound deep despise to do anything there anything, carte noir e
as when u go to wc watever u do is the max dirt u know